The Day I Left Home to Join the Army.

The year was 1964. Most kids my age were off listening to Jimmy Hendrix, smoking weed and having weird sex in fields. Not me though. I had decided to do something worthwhile with my life. I had decided I wanted to use actions to make the world a better place. There was all kinds of nasty bastards trying to fuck it up for everyone everywhere and I wanted to make a stand. I wanted to look these people in the eye and slap their mouths until they cried. I had but one option. Go to ‘naam, kill their women, kill their children and then burn their forests until peace was restored in the world.

I had woken up good and early on the morning of my 18th birthday, but it wasn’t so that I had more hours of the day to eat cake. Fuck cake. Cake is for pussies. Remember that. If anyone ever offers you some cake and you eat it, you may as well go into the kitchen, get the bluntest knife you can find and just hack at your balls until they fall off. Because you are a lady now. Eating cake and having periods and talking shit whilst not driving properly. No. Cake wasn’t top of my list of things to do that birthday. Murder was. I left the house at 6am and headed down to the local recruiting office. It wasn’t open until 10 but I wanted to dodge the ques. I could only imagine how many other eager young men wanted to offer their lives to calm down the bat-shit crazy people of Vietnam. I also chose to wear shorts so anyone working at the office could see my thick, muscular calves.

Ding-ding! “Good morning”. These were the first things I heard when I entered to building. the ‘ding-ding’ being a little bell hanging over the door on a bit of string like they have in corner shops so you can work in the back without fear of letting a customer spend 45 minutes at the counter waiting for someone to serve them. Nope. That was a thing of the past once the little-bell-on-a-string-over-the-door was invented. This was the 60’s. The world was moving forward at an incredible rate and it felt good. The “good morning” was the sound of the voice of the fellow recruiting nieve, young, nimble men like myself. He said it as it was the morning and he wanted to be polite in hopes of getting me to fight for the nation. I had already decided I was going to sign up. He could have greeted me with a “Fuck off” and shown me a photo of him masturbating over a photo of my mother masturbating over photo of a dog sitting on a beach and I still would have joined the army.

“Interested in joining the forces, eh kid?” He asked me. I was interested in joining the forces. This guy could read me like a book. “What a sharp cookie” I thought to myself.

“I am”, I replied, “Ever since I can remember I’ve wanted to bring peace and order to the world through the subtle art of racially charged murder. Where the fuck do I sign up and where the fuck do I get my gun?”

“Easy, tiger!” he said. “There’s tests and examinations we need to run through before you can actually join the army.” This guy obviously hadn’t seen my legs.

“Have you not seen my legs? They are thick with strength. I could make easy work of kicking any mid-sized dog to death. they often get mistaken for bits of tree when I’m in the woods. And wearing shorts.” I stepped back from the desk and lifted my leg at the knee to reveal all. He was clearly impressed.

“Clearly, I am impressed” he said. “I think we can overlook everything, and everyone, else. We need a set of legs like that on board. when can you start?”

“Now. right now. I want to be in ‘naam right now, killing their women and killing their children and burning their forests until they get peace.”

“That might be a little bit tricky, considering how we are not involved in that war. that’s those crazy Yank bastards, God bless them.” he said, with a single tear running down his cheek.

“What? What the fuck? What do you mean? Whos wives and children and forests can I kill and burn now then? What am I suppose to do?”

“Well if I’m quite honest there isn’t much going on. We have the Falklands, but that war isn’t until the 80’s. We kind of just watch the news and play board games and let our homosexual tendencies run wild.” This was not good news for me.

“But what am I suppose to do? I need to kill!” I said, clearly agitated and grinding my teeth.

“You are clearly aggitated” he said, proving yet again that he was indeed one sharp cookie. “why not try killing stray cats?” He said in a jokey tone. I knew he wasn’t joking, though. I left that place and went straight to find my first cat, and I knew exactly where I was going to find it.

Next door to my mothers house lived a lovely old woman named Dorian. she was the kindest woman you’d ever meet. Her husband died a few years previously (I would just like to go on record as saying I am pretty confident that he faked his own death. It was all very mysterious. How can you die in a Morrisons? It just doesn’t seem plausible.) and ever since she does absolutely anything for anyone. She even takes hot meals around the estate for everyone to have a warm lunch. A lot of the time we had already eaten, so we just presented to eat the food to make her happy. It usually went straight in the bin. She caught on to this though and tried to catch us out by poisoning the food with massive amounts of nicotine. She really was a card! Anyway, like I said, her poor husband allegedly had a ‘massive stroke’ and ‘past away’ so to fill the void in her heart she got herself this lovely looking tabby kitten. She named it George (after her ‘late’ husband) and it was always by her side. Well, not always.

After around a year of George just being another neighbourhood cat I noticed a large increase in cat shit in my mam’s garden. I spend many a night sitting in their dark outside waiting to see what cat could possibly produce that much poop and what I learnt was far, far more shocking than one cat having lots of poops.

I heard a rustle come from the gate and I saw George coming in, so I hid behind a wicker chair to observe where all this poop was coming from and too my surprise it wasn’t just george. There must have been maybe a dozen other cats walking behind him in a single file. “How odd” I thought to myself whilst observing where this could possibly be going. they all sat in a circle around the garden while two would fuck in the middle. They would fuck, then watch each other doing shits, then fuck again. just fucking and pooping all over my mothers garden. It was one of the wildest orgies I’ve ever seen. Hell, even I got a little aroused. but I was here for a reason. all this pooping needed to end. I tried to bring it up at several neighbourhood watch meetings but people would just laugh it off. “Oh! haha! Ha ha Miles. You are a funny one” But I was deadly serious. those cats continued ruining my life with their fuck-shit orgies. Every night I would hear them. It felt like they were laughing at me. Mocking me and destroying my mothers garden. This finally got to me and after around a month of their mocking wails I snapped and had a nervous breakdown. I don’t remember much of it but apparently I was found crying and screaming my own name in a nursing home. I hated that cat. George. After I recovered we decided it was best if I moved away from my mothers house. to get away from the cause of my problems. And I did. I had completely forgotten about George until the army official effectively granted me permission on behalf of Her Majesty the queen to murder any cat I desired. and I desired to kill George. And it felt good. I felt alive for the first time ever. In a way I’m glad I didn’t go to ‘naam, because this was far more satisfying than any woman or child I would have murdered and burnt over there. Plus I hear the climate is very warm and I get sunstroke easily.